Magnetically Enhanced Thin-Film Coarsening by a Magnetic XPFC Model Allowing to Decouple Magnetic Anisotropy and Magnetostriction

External magnetic fields provide a macroscopic control mechanism to influence the microstructure of polycrystalline materials. Herein, the influence of strong magnetic fields on grain growth in thin films is modeled with a magnetic extended phase field crystal model. The magneto–structural effects are incorporated into the correlation function in reciprocal space. With this approach, magnetic anisotropy, magnetostriction, and mobility of grain boundary can be controlled and a variety of geometrical and topological properties consistent with experimental results can be determined.     

Adaptation of a Rare Earth Element Pre-concentration Method for Water Enriched in Al,Ca, Fe,and Mg

The use of rare earth elements (REE) as process indicators in water-rock interactions can be hampered by the fact that samples with high concentrations of total dissolved solids require dilution before ICP-MS analysis, which can lower REE concentrations close to or below detection limits. A pre-concentration method originally developed for chloride-dominated water with very low REE concentrations was tested for and adapted to sulfate-rich water from a mining-affected area with a pH of 6 and high concentrations of Ca, Fe, Mg, and sometimes Al. The adapted approach proved easy to implement in the field and produced very good recoveries and reliable REE patterns. Two factors, sample volume and ionic strength, were tested. Pre-concentration with high sample volumes (1000 mL) resulted in poor recoveries (1.8?±?0.3?% for La up to 17.8?±?0.6?% for Yb). When the sample volume was reduced to 25 mL, much better recoveries were achieved. Reducing the ionic strength by diluting the sample 1:100 or 1:1000 resulted in comparable recoveries than the approach with reduced sample volume, indicating that sample volume was more important than ionic strength. Among the tested competing elements, high concentrations of Ca, Fe, and Mg resulted in loss of light REE (La-Nd), while Al was found to reduce the recovery of all REE. Also for water with high concentrations of Ca and Fe and very low REE concentrations (ppt-range), especially La results should be considered with care after pre-concentration, and be neglected in REE patterns if necessary.     

Bioaccumulation of Arsenic Species in Rays from the Northern Adriatic Sea

The difference in arsenic concentration and speciation between benthic (Pteromylaeus bovinus, Myliobatis aquila) and pelagic rays (Pteroplatytrygon violacea) from the northern Adriatic Sea (Gulf of Trieste) in relation to their size (age) was investigated. High arsenic concentrations were found in both groups with tendency of more efficient arsenic accumulation in benthic species, particularly in muscle (32.4 to 362 µg·g⁻¹ of total arsenic). This was attributed to species differences in arsenic access, uptake and retention. In liver most arsenic was present in a form of arsenobetaine, dimethylarsinic acid and arsenoipids, whereas in muscle mainly arsenobetaine was found. The good correlations between total arsenic/arsenobetaine and size reflect the importance of accumulation of arsenobetaine with age. Arsenobetaine is an analogue of glycine betaine, a known osmoregulator in marine animals and both are very abundant in mussels, representing an important source of food for benthic species P. bovinus and M. aquila.     

SAR reduced black-blood cine TPM for increased temporal resolution at 3T

Object  

The objective was to improve the temporal resolution in black-blood CINE tissue phase mapping sequences at high field MR systems. The temporal resolution is limited due to SAR constraints causing idle times into the sequence. The aim was to avoid these idle times and therefore providing an increased number of heart phases.     

Synthesis and investigations on the oxidative degradation of C3/C5-alkyl-1,2,4-triarylpyrroles as ligands for the estrogen receptor

In this study, we synthesized 1,2,4‐triarylpyrroles as ligands for the estrogen receptor (ER). Two pyrrole series were prepared with either C3‐alkyl or C3/C5‐dialkyl residues. Compounds from both series were susceptible to oxidative degradation—dialkylated compounds (t_1/2=33–66 h) to a higher extent than their monoalkylated congeners (t_1/2=140–211 h). Nevertheless, stability was sufficient for determination of in vitro ER binding affinity. The most active agonist in hormone‐dependent, ERα‐positive MCF‐7/2a and U2‐OS/α cells was 1,2,4‐tris(4‐hydroxyphenyl)‐3‐propyl‐1H‐pyrrole ( 6 d ) (MCF‐7/2a: EC₅₀=70 nM ; U2‐OS/α: EC₅₀=1.6 nM ). A corresponding inactivity in U2‐OS/β cells demonstrated the high ERα selectivity. This trend was confirmed in a competition experiment using estradiol (E2) and purified hERα and hERβ proteins (relative binding affinity (RBA) calculated for 6 d : RBA(ERα)=1.85 %; RBA(ERβ) <0.01 %). Generally, C3/C5‐dialkyl substitution led to reduction of activity, possibly due to lower stability.     

Oxide nanocrystal based nanocomposites for fabricating photoplastic AFM probes

We report on the synthesis, characterization and application of a novel nanocomposite made of a negative tone epoxy based photoresist modified with organic-capped Fe(2)O(3) nanocrystals (NCs). The mechanical properties of the nanocomposite drastically improve upon incorporation of a suitable concentration of NCs in the polymer, without deteriorating its photolithography performance. High aspect ratio 3D microstructures made of the nanocomposite have been fabricated with a uniform surface morphology and with a resolution down to few micrometres. The embedded organic-capped Fe(2)O(3) NCs drastically increase the stiffness and hardness of the epoxy based photoresist matrix, making the final material extremely interesting for manufacturing miniaturized polymer based mechanical devices and systems. In particular, the nanocomposite has been used as structural material for fabricating photoplastic Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) probes with integrated tips showing outstanding mechanical response and high resolution imaging performance. The fabricated probes consist of straight cantilevers with low stress-gradient and high quality factors, incorporating sharp polymeric tips. They present considerably improved performance compared to pure epoxy based photoresist AFM probes, and to commercial silicon AFM probes.     

One‐Pot Synthesis of Luminescent Polymer‐Nanoparticle Composites from Task‐Specific Ionic Liquids

A multifunctional polymerizable ionic liquid, diallyldimethylammonium tetrafluoroborate (DADMA BF₄), is used in a one‐pot synthesis of novel luminescent polymer‐nanoparticle composites. First, small monodisperse lanthanide fluoride nanoparticles are formed by microwave irradiation in the presence of Ln(OAc)₃·xH₂O (Ln = Gd, Eu, Tb; OAc = acetate) in the ionic liquid. The nanoparticles can be precipitated for structural characterization or kept in the solution, which yields after irradition by high intensity UV light colorless, processable polymer materials with good photophysical properties. Both green‐emitting Tb‐containing and red‐emitting Eu‐containing IL‐ polymers are described.     

Geometrical optimization and contact configuration in radial pn junction silicon nanorod and microrod solar cells

Electric charge transport simulations of symmetrically doped radial pn junction silicon nanorod solar cells were performed using the Technology Computer‐aided Design software suite by Silvaco. Two schemes of electric contacting were applied, the first one consisting of a cathode wrapped around the cladding of the rod and the second one in a cathode located only on the top rod surface. In both cases, the anode was implemented just below the bottom end of the p‐type rod core. P‐type cores and n‐type shells of the rods were assumed, with dopant densities of 10¹⁸ cm^{− 3} in both regions. The location of the pn junction was chosen such that well‐formed space charge regions could be established with the outer end of the n‐type depletion region being adjacent to the cylindric surface of the nanorod. Rod radii and rod lengths were varied and optimized in a three‐step process for both types of contacting schemes. It was found that inhomogeneous carrier generation profiles diminish the open‐circuit voltage in case of a wrapped cathode configuration. Most realistic is the usage of a top contact configuration with rod radii of 2 µm and lengths of around 100 µm, leading to a cell efficiency of about 15%. Further enhancement of performance is expected, if light trapping of the nanorod layer is taken into account and photonic light harvesting is applied. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic buy-back for product recovery in end-of-life spare parts procurement

The efficient supply of spare parts is of prime concern for original equipment manufacturers (OEM). While manufacturing the parent product, spare parts can be sourced efficiently by using existing manufacturing facilities. This situation completely changes once the original equipment manufacturer ceases production of the parent product. In addition to traditional spare parts sources in the form of final order and remanufacturing, the option to buy back parts or products provides a viable alternative in the end-of-life phase. This can prevent the OEM from fulfilling his spare parts availability obligation or increase his ability to remanufacture. Current practice in industry is, on the one hand, to offer trade-in campaigns to acquire functional products from customers by giving substantial discounts on a new-generation product. On the other hand, trade-in rebates are given when customers return their broken parts in exchange for spare parts. We propose the consideration of a third option, i.e. to buy back broken products in order to improve control of both demand for spare parts and supply of recoverable parts. This contribution seeks to assess the potential benefit of buy-back strategies in contrast to both traditional sourcing and trade-in campaigns for different settings regarding information availability and buy-back flexibility. For each situation, a MILP formulation is presented, and in a numerical study we analyse the circumstances under which the buy-back of broken products is especially beneficial for the OEM.     

Inventor collaboration over distance: a comparison of academic and corporate patents

Patenting is often done in collaboration with other inventors to integrate complementary and additional knowledge. The paper takes a spatial view of this issue and analyses the distances between inventors of German patents. We compare the distances between invention teams of German patent applications from 1993–2006 and distinguish between academic and corporate teams and those consisting of researchers from both domains (‘mixed teams’). Due to their different institutional backgrounds different types of proximity guide their spatial search for partners. The basic finding is that regional collaboration clearly prevails. However, the distance between collaborating inventors of corporate patents exceeds that of inventors of academic patents, but the largest distances can be found in science–industry collaborative patents. When excluding directly neighboured collaboration, which is likely to be in-house collaboration, the differences between academic and corporate teams vanish, but mixed teams still overcome longer distances.